Coal Age

NOV 2012

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bowie resources Rising Phoenix Bowie longwall mine comes roaring back BY LEE BUCHSBAUM, ASSOCIATE EDITOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER The Bowie No. 2 longwall mine, owned by Bowie Resources, is located at the west end of the North Fork of the Gunnison Valley in western Colorado. It was constructed to service a TVA con- tract, one that is still responsible for the majority of the coal they mine. But tough geology, declining markets and changing ownership slowed the mine down and eventually, temporarily curtailed pro- duction. Today, the Cedar's Investment Group owns the mine. L&L; Energy, a Chinese-American investment fund, is a secured lender and has a small stake. Cedar's recently sold an interest in the mine to international coal trader Mercuria. Now Mercuria has a signifi- cant position in Bowie and functions as the mine's marketing agent. Historically, from 1999 to 2007, Bowie was consistently producing about 5 mil- lion tons a year. "That was our average and that was our target from 2008 and 2009. In 2010, we had some issues and we actually abandoned the northeast portion of the reserve and drove to the current mining area," said Dewey Tanner, vice president and general man- ager, Bowie Resources. Unfortunately, Bowie went about 16 months without running the mine's longwall. But now they have worked into a new area for Bowie. "We're really excited to be work- ing out our third panel in a new district. This year, we'll probably produce about 4.3 million raw tons and we expect to do 5 million clean next year," said Tanner. Production-wise in the last year and a half, Bowie has moved from what was the northeast district, which had a lot of gas and roof problems, to another area that it has now traversed through. "We've mined more than a hundred thousand linear feet, about 4 miles, since then. We're now in the third longwall panel in our new district. In June 2012, the mine celebrated the first 500,000 ton 24 www.coalage.com Located in Gunnison Valley in western Colorado, Bowie Resources expects to produce 5 million clean tons in 2013. production month since the struggles that began in 2007 and the redevelop- ment of the mine." Though producing out of the same seam as before, coal quality, particularly moisture, has changed. "We have a wash plant so we can give a customer a full 12,000 Btu product. And that's been our bench- mark, we produce some very hot burning coal here. It's about 0.4% sulfur, 0.8 lb SO2 per million Btu, it's 9% moisture, 7%-8% ash, it's an excellent super-compliant coal product," said Tanner. Redevelopment & Learning to Navigate Faults As it develops the mine, Bowie is mining to a 9-ft height and the seam's as thick as 20 feet in places. "We like to retreat at about 11 ft on our longwall and we devel- November 2012

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